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With a fire hose of misinformation surrounding the assassination of US right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, social media users have turned to AI chatbots for reliable updates — only to encounter contradictory or inaccurate responses, further fueling online confusion.The trend highlights how chatbots often generate confident responses, even when verified information is unavailable during fast-developing news events, energizing misinformation across platforms that have largely scaled back human fact-checking and content moderation.A day after Kirk, a 31-year-old prominent ally of President Donald Trump, was fatally gunned down at a university in Utah, the X account of AI chatbot Perplexity falsely stated that the activist was never shot and was “still alive,” according to the watchdog NewsGuard.When posts containing an authentic video of Kirk being shot swirled online, the X account of Grok — Elon Musk’s AI chatbot — stated that it was a satirical clip.”The video is a meme edit — Charlie Kirk is debating, and effects make it look like he’s ‘shot’ mid-sentence for comedic effect. No actual harm; he’s fine and active as ever,” Grok wrote.Grok also falsely claimed that a Utah-based registered Democrat named Michael Mallinson had been identified as the shooter, wrongly attributing the information to major news outlets such as CNN and the New York Times.Mallinson, in reality a 77-year-old retired Canadian banker living in Toronto, said he was “shocked” by thousands of social media posts that labeled him the culprit.Breaking news events often spark a frantic search for new information on social media, frequently leading to false conclusions that chatbots then regurgitate, contributing to further online chaos.The tide of misinformation comes amid a volatile environment in the United States following Kirk’s assassination, with many right-wing influencers from Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) political base calling for violence and “retribution” against the left.The motives of the gunman involved in the shooting — who remains at large — are unknown.- ‘Liar’s dividend’ -Meanwhile, some conspiracy theorists have baselessly claimed that the video showing Kirk being shot was AI-generated, asserting that the entire incident was staged.The assertion underscores how the rise of cheap and widely available AI tools has given misinformation peddlers a handy incentive to cast doubt about the authenticity of real content –- a tactic researchers have dubbed as the “liar’s dividend.””We have analyzed several of the videos (of Kirk’s shooting) circulating online and find no evidence of manipulation or tampering,” said Hany Farid, the co-founder of GetReal Security and a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.Farid also reported seeing some AI-generated videos.”This is an example of how fake content can muddy the waters and in turn cast doubt on legitimate content,” he said. The falsehoods underline how facts are increasingly under assault in a misinformation-filled internet landscape, an issue exacerbated by public distrust of institutions and traditional media.It has exposed an urgent need for stronger AI detection tools, experts say, as major tech platforms have largely weakened safeguards by reducing investment in human fact-checking.Researchers say chatbots have previously made errors verifying information related to other crises such as the Israel-Hamas war in the Middle East, the recent India-Pakistan conflict and anti-immigration protests in Los Angeles.A recent audit by NewsGuard found that 10 leading AI chatbots repeated false information on controversial news topics at nearly double the rate compared to one year ago.”A key factor behind the increased fail rate is the growing propensity for chatbots to answer all inquiries, as opposed to refusing to answer certain prompts,” NewsGuard said in a report last week.”The Large Language Models (LLMs) now pull from real-time web searches — sometimes deliberately seeded by vast networks of malign actors.”

US President Donald Trump and other officials paid tribute to slain right-wing activist Charlie Kirk on Thursday as the country marked the 24th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks.Kirk was a “giant of his generation,” and a “champion of liberty,” Trump said at the beginning of his remarks during a 9/11 ceremony at the Pentagon, which was one of the targets of the Al-Qaeda attacks that sparked two decades of deadly conflict.The US president announced that he would soon posthumously award Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom — the country’s highest civilian honor.Speaking at the same ceremony, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that “like those on 9/11, you will never be forgotten.”Kirk — a close ally of Trump — was shot in the neck while speaking at an event at Utah Valley University on Wednesday.Vice President JD Vance canceled a trip to New York for 9/11 commemorations so he could meet with Kirk’s grieving family in Utah.Later on Thursday, Trump traveled to his hometown of New York to attend a baseball game at Yankee Stadium, where he received both cheers and boos from the crowd.Memorial events for 9/11 were held at Ground Zero in Manhattan where the World Trade Center’s twin towers were destroyed in coordinated attacks that also saw a jetliner crashed into the Pentagon.Another jet crashed into the Pennsylvania countryside when passengers overran the hijacker and took control of the aircraft. – ‘Same hate’ – Several mayoral candidates took part in commemorations in New York that marked a brief respite from a bitter battle to be the city’s next leader.Two days ago, former governor and independent candidate Andrew Cuomo criticized his Democratic rival Zohran Mamdani for giving an interview to a left-wing streamer who had said in 2019 that the United States deserved 9/11. Cuomo said it showed that Mamdani does not deserve to be mayor.Mamdani’s campaign hit back that “to suggest that Zohran Mamdani — who is poised to become New York’s first Muslim mayor — somehow supported 9/11” is “vile” and “dangerous.”Mamdani holds a 22-point lead in the race, according to the latest polling from The New York Times and Siena.Incumbent Mayor Eric Adams tied the killing of Kirk with 9/11 on Thursday, saying: “It’s the same hate that drove two planes into the World Trade Center that drove a bullet through the neck of Charlie Kirk.””That assassination cut at the heart of what we are as Americans,” Adams said.”If we don’t pause for a moment on 9/11 to state that we’re better than that as Americans, we’re better than that as human beings, then we’re going to find ourselves in a dark place.”New York marked a citywide moment of silence at 8:46 am (1246 GMT), when hijacked Flight 11 struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center 24 years ago.Places of worship across the city then sounded their bells to mark the impact as families of the victims read the names of those killed at ground zero. The official death toll was 2,977 including the passengers and crew of the four hijacked planes, victims in the twin towers, firefighters and personnel at the Pentagon. The death toll excludes the 19 Al-Qaeda hijackers. 

France and Germany moved to bolster defence of Polish airspace Thursday as the UN Security Council called an emergency meeting to discuss Warsaw’s accusation that Moscow launched a drone raid on its territory.Poland branded the incident, which prompted Polish and NATO forces to shoot down several drones overnight Tuesday to Wednesday, a deliberate “unprecedented” attack on the country, NATO and the European Union.Moscow denied targeting the country and said there was no evidence the drones were Russian. The drones intruded as Russia unleashed a barrage of strikes across Ukraine as part of an ongoing offensive there following its 2022 invasion.US President Donald Trump, who has been trying unsuccessfully to broker a halt to the war in Ukraine, told reporters on Thursday that the alleged incursion may have happened by “mistake”.But Polish President Karol Nawrocki warned Thursday during a visit to an airbase in western Poland that the incident was “an attempt to test the mechanism of action within NATO and our readiness to respond”.Germany said it would “extend and expand” its participation in NATO’s Air Policing programme, to provide more cover to Polish airspace.Its defence ministry said it would double the number of Eurofighter jets deployed to four and extend their mission by three months to the end of the year.And French President Emmanuel Macron announced in a post on X that France would “deploy three Rafale fighter jets to contribute to the protection of Polish airspace and of NATO’s Eastern Flank together with our Allies.”The UN Security Council’s South Korean presidency announced Thursday it would hold an emergency meeting to discuss Warsaw’s claim of a “violation of Polish airspace by Russia”.It will take place on Friday at 3:00 pm (1900 GMT).- Border security boosted -Stray Russian drones and missiles have entered the airspace of NATO members including Poland several times since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.Polish officials said on this occasion drones violated its airspace 19 times. There were no casualties and the damage was limited — a house and a car were destroyed.Poland’s National Security Council met Thursday and the defence minister was expected to brief parliament on the latest findings.Poland boosted its security Thursday, closing air traffic along its eastern borders with Belarus and Ukraine to civilian flights up to an altitude of three kilometres (1.9 miles) until December 9.The PAZP air traffic control agency announced that drones would also be banned.The country had already announced ramped-up measures on the Belarus border to cope with military drills the country is carrying out with its ally Russia between September 12 and 16. The few open border crossings with Belarus were to be closed from Friday due to the Zapad (“West”) drills.Reacting to the closure, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova in a statement urged Poland “to consider the consequences of such destructive steps and to review its decision as soon as possible”.The border closure was to “justify a policy of further escalating tensions in the centre of Europe”, she added.- ‘Reckless’: NATO -Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned on Wednesday that the drone raid marked an unprecedented escalation of tension with Russia.Tusk called a NATO meeting on Wednesday, invoking Article 4 under which a member can convene urgent talks when it feels its “territorial integrity, political independence or security” are at risk — only the eighth time the measure has been used.A cornerstone of NATO is the principle that an attack on any member is deemed an attack on all.NATO chief Mark Rutte denounced Moscow’s “reckless behaviour” while hailing his organisation’s response. The alliance’s air defences had done their job, he told journalists.The European Union and Ukraine condemned the incident on Wednesday, and several European countries followed on Thursday.In Beijing, foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told a regular news briefing China “hopes that all parties concerned will properly resolve their disputes through dialogue and consultation”.China has never denounced Russia’s war in Ukraine.Poland is a major supporter of Ukraine and hosts more than one million Ukrainian refugees. It is also a key transit point for Western humanitarian and military aid to the country.

The wildly popular Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny says he will skip the United States during an upcoming world tour because he fears raids by immigration agents at his concerts.Since July the singer has been playing to sold-out shows in San Juan, capital of the US territory in the Caribbean.He will kick off his “Debi Tirar Mas Fotos” (I Should Have Taken More Photos) international tour, which will take him to Latin America, Australia, Japan and Europe, starting in November.The artist said he will not perform shows in the United States, where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers have arrested tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants, many of them Latinos, under a crackdown ordered by President Donald Trump’s administration.”There were many reasons why I didn’t show up in the US, and none of them were out of hate. I’ve performed there many times,” he told the British magazine i-D in an interview published Wednesday.Bad Bunny said his shows this summer in Puerto Rico have been very successful and he enjoyed meeting Latinos who have lived in the continental United States.He said the problem is “ICE could be outside” US concert venues, using an expletive to describe the agency. “And it’s something that we were talking about and very concerned about.”In June, Bad Bunny posted video footage on his social media channels from an ICE raid that took place on his home island.Since Trump took office in January for a second term, the number of undocumented immigrants detained in police raids has reached record highs.In June, there were 60,254 such arrests in the United States, a record for that month, compared with 40,500 arrests in January 2025 before Trump returned to the White House, according to an AFP analysis of government data.   In Puerto Rico, where ICE also operates, 500 immigrants, mainly from the nearby Dominican Republic, were arrested in the first four months of Trump’s second term, an ICE official, Rebecca Gonzalez-Ramos, said in an interview on National Public Radio.

Radical violence. Immigration raids. White supremacists. Leonardo DiCaprio’s politically charged new movie “One Battle After Another” could scarcely be more timely. Part-action, part-drama, with plenty of comedy and almost guaranteed a bagful of Oscar nominations, the film centers on an ageing revolutionary and his teenage daughter.It delivers a lesson on “what this next generation is going to have to deal with,” DiCaprio told a press conference Thursday.DiCaprio plays Bob, a political insurgent who specializes in explosives. The movie begins as he conducts undercover resistance operations at the US-Mexico border with his lover and co-conspirator, Perfidia (Teyana Taylor).But when villainous Sean Penn’s Colonel Lockjaw infiltrates the group, Bob is forced to flee with their infant Willa. Sixteen years later, the bulk of the story finds Bob’s outlaw history catching up with him and his now-adolescent daughter.Lockjaw is in hot pursuit, happy to order arbitrary immigration crackdowns on the community where he believes his target is hiding.The problem is, Bob has spent that time frying his brain with drugs and alcohol — and can’t remember the first thing about being a revolutionary.”I love the idea that you expect this character’s going to use massive espionage skills, but he cannot remember the password,” said DiCaprio. “His past is coming back to haunt him, and now it’s passed on to the next generation, a sort of trauma.”- ‘Politically charged’ -The film, out September 26 in the United States, comes from writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson, the auteur behind “There Will Be Blood,” “Magnolia,” “Boogie Nights” and “Licorice Pizza.”Reviews are under embargo, but immediate reaction from critics on social media has been effusive in praise. It is already seen as a clear frontrunner for best picture at the Academy Awards.Penn’s character is embroiled with a group of white supremacists called the Christmas Adventurers — a setup that provides comedy as well as darkness.”Well, they became less ludicrous even since we’ve shot the film. I see the culture adapting to take it all straight,” Penn earlier told the New York Times.DiCaprio told the same newspaper that the movie “is politically charged, but I think it has a lot to do with how tribal we’ve all become.” The film dissects “how we have stopped listening to one another, and how these characters thinking or acting in these extremes can bring a lot of hurt,” said the actor.The Times interview was conducted several weeks before the fatal shooting of right-wing US activist Charlie Kirk.”I hope that this movie really creates a lot of healthy dialog and a lot of necessary conversations that need to be had,” Taylor told Thursday’s press conference.- ‘Blast’ -By his own admission, Anderson “stole” the concept of “what happens when revolutionaries scatter” from the Thomas Pynchon novel “Vineland.”Anderson previously adapted Pynchon’s “Inherent Vice” for the screen. But this time the inspiration is much looser.”Rather than be respectful of the book like I did with ‘Inherent Vice,’ I just kind of took what I needed… and just started running with it,” Anderson told a Los Angeles special screening attended by AFP.DiCaprio, playing an atypically shabby and disheveled, paranoid hero, drew inspiration from “The Big Lebowski,” as well as Al Pacino’s character in “Dog Day Afternoon.””The humanity of the character, in a strange way — an incredibly flawed protagonist” appealed to DiCaprio.”It was a blast to make the movie.”

A decades-old book of cheerful, often lewd birthday messages has set off a political bomb in Washington — helping bring down the British ambassador and inflaming the most perilous scandal of Donald Trump’s presidency.Compiled to celebrate Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003, the three-volume book had remained secret for years.But his estate handed it over this week to Congress, which swiftly made its 238 pages public, offering a vivid window into the late sex offender’s well-connected world.Frequently referring to his playboy lifestyle, it also renewed long-running questions about what his elite associates knew of his alleged criminal activity with underage girls.The scandal proved too much for Peter Mandelson, a top British political operator fired Thursday from his prestigious post as ambassador to the United States.A 10-page entry allegedly submitted by Mandelson includes photos from his time with “best pal” Epstein in a tropical locale, apparently the financier’s notorious private island in the Caribbean.Epstein would sometimes disappear, “leaving you with some ‘interesting’ friends to entertain instead,” says a note, along with a photo of two women whose faces are obscured.British media then published emails from Mandelson, in which he offers support to Epstein after his 2008 conviction for procuring an underaged girl for prostitution, ultimately leading to his ouster.Other VIPs are peppered throughout. The most famous among them: Trump.- Political nightmare -For the 79-year-old Republican, the Epstein scandal is a political nightmare that refuses to die.Democrats have pounced since July, when Trump’s administration confirmed Epstein’s 2019 death was a suicide and deemed the release of more case files unnecessary — despite previously fanning conspiracies among fellow Republicans about a coverup.Trump now dismisses the saga as a Democratic “hoax.”However, under pressure from their own right-wing base, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives launched an investigation.That brought the birthday book to light, including Trump’s alleged note: a type-written message inserted into the sketched outline of a nude woman — with his signature for pubic hair.”May every day be another wonderful secret,” it reads.Trump and his allies claim the signature is fake. However, it bears striking resemblance to other documents he signed during the period.While the Wall Street Journal had previously reported on the existence of the letter — prompting Trump to file a $10 billion defamation suit — another note alluding to the president appears.”Jeffrey showing early talents with money + women! Sells ‘fully depreciated’ [redacted name] to Donald Trump,” reads the note, allegedly from businessman Joel Paschow, a longtime member of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club.The text accompanies a photo of Epstein holding an oversized check marked “DJ Trump.” Next to him is a woman who has been identified in US media as someone who dated both Trump and Epstein in the 1990s.The page before includes a sketch of Epstein handing little girls balloons in 1983, then several topless women massaging him in 2003 — apparently a joking reference to his grooming of underage women.- Other VIPs -The book features a bevy of other prominent people.Ahead of Trump’s alleged letter is a poem from Stuart Pivar, a wealthy chemist and art collector, lightheartedly remarking that Epstein was “up to no good” but had thus far “avoided the penitentiary.”Next up is a note from Harvard economist Henry Rosovsky, who died in 2022.”For the man who has almost everything, but never enough of these!” it reads, followed by two painted prints of breasts.A note allegedly from famed private equity investor Leon Black refers to a “Maxwellian delight.”This refers to Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who compiled the birthday book, and is now serving a 20-year prison sentence for recruiting underage girls.Also included is a note from French model scout Jean-Luc Brunel, who would later be arrested in France on rape charges and whose 2022 prison death was also ruled suicide.Trump isn’t the only president to appear.A note from former president Bill Clinton praises Epstein’s “childlike curiosity” at 50.

Two people misidentified online as suspects in the fatal shooting of right-wing US activist Charlie Kirk told AFP Thursday they were terrified by the misinformation targeting them, as the manhunt for the real killer continued.Michaela, who asked to be identified by her first name due to safety concerns, told AFP she became “really scared” as she was inundated with hate-filled messages and threats after her image circulated in posts that falsely named her as the shooter.”I’m getting witch-hunted online,” she said. “Some people want to enact vigilante justice on me.”The 29-year-old transgender woman told AFP she spent the day Wednesday in the state of Washington, where she lives and works as a paralegal. She said she has only been to Utah once, for an overnight stop in Moab while moving from Texas in May, and is not a student at Utah Valley University, where Kirk was shot.Screenshots shared with AFP of her bank transactions and iPhone location history confirm she was in Washington when Kirk was killed.Her roommate also corroborated her location, calling the rumors “insane.”- ‘Fits their narrative’ -Misinformation proliferates rapidly after major breaking news events, and transgender people have become a common scapegoat after US mass shootings.The high-profile assassination of Kirk, a polarizing figure with a massive following, kicked the search for information into overdrive. Multiple out-of-context visuals quickly spread online.In Michaela’s case, her profile image appears to have been erroneously linked to Kirk’s shooting because it was indexed in searches for another X user who posted about the Turning Point USA founder’s visit Wednesday to Utah Valley University. The user, whom Michaela said she does not know, had previously shared one of Michaela’s posts earlier in the week.”People on the right wing, obviously they want a shooter, and a trans person fits their narrative,” she said. “It’s pretty surreal to see how quickly it happened.”The FBI released pictures of a person of interest Thursday and also said the presumed murder weapon had been found, after two people taken into custody were later released.On Instagram, Michaela has frantically sought to clarify she is not a suspect and did not author the posts about Kirk’s Utah event. She has also contacted the FBI.But her picture has rocketed across social media, boosted by prominent accounts that have promoted Russian disinformation and the QAnon conspiracy theory.In direct messages reviewed by AFP, several people threatened to kill her, often using explicit language or anti-LGBTQ slurs.”You better watch out because we’re coming for you,” one message said.- Misidentified suspects -Across the border in Canada, another man was dealing with similar harassment.Michael Mallinson, a 77-year-old retired banker from Toronto, posted an article from a US fact-checking outlet on his LinkedIn “to set the record straight” after X users wrongly matched his photos to footage of a man who was initially apprehended by police.The hoax had started with an account impersonating a local news station in Nevada.Mallinson told AFP he learned of the misinformation about him when his daughter called in a panic, pleading that he delete his social media accounts to protect himself. She had received what he described as a “very nasty message” on Facebook.On X, hundreds more spiteful comments had been left under a photo he uploaded in May.”I have absolutely nothing to do with this,” Mallinson said, explaining that he has never been to Utah and had not heard of Kirk before yesterday. “I was horrified and shocked.”Mallinson said he deactivated his accounts, alerted police and has been emailing his friends and relatives the truth.”It’s my image, it’s my name, but it’s not me, and I don’t really know what to do,” he said. “I worry about longer-term ramifications. That stuff stays on social media forever.”

Belarus on Thursday freed 52 political prisoners, including an EU staff member, journalists, and dissidents — in a release mediated by the United States as Minsk seeks closer ties with President Donald Trump.Tens of thousands of Belarusians took to the streets in 2020 to protest what they called a sham presidential election in which Alexander Lukashenko secured himself a sixth term. Many were detained during a brutal crackdown and later prosecuted on what rights groups denounced as politically motivated charges.Trump has been pushing Lukashenko to free the more than 1,000 political prisoners rights groups say are still behind bars.Among those released on Thursday were Mikola Statkevich, 69, a veteran dissident who stood against Lukashenko in a 2010 presidential contest, said rights group Vyasna. He had been in jail for five years. Also freed was a staff member with the EU’s delegation in Minsk and nine journalists and bloggers, including a reporter for US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.”The United States welcomes the continued release of political prisoners in Belarus following President Trump’s engagement,” said a White House official.Brussels welcomed the release of its employee.”I’m glad our colleague Mikalai Khilo is among those freed,” said EU chief Ursula von der Leyen. “Our work to free all political prisoners continues.”- 1,000 still in jail -Belarusian rights groups said more than a dozen people with foreign citizenship were among those released, including Lithuanian, Latvian, Polish, German, French and British citizens.Most of those released had crossed the border into EU member Lithuania, where they were greeted by exiled opposition figures.   Images showed the men being released sitting on a bus at the border, their heads recently shaven.But Statkevich appeared to have decided to return to Belarus, despite his wife and allies attempting for hours to convince him to cross, independent outlet Zerkalo reported, citing his party member Evgeniy Vilskiy. “He refused. He believes that Lukashenko does not determine his fate,” Vilskiy told Zerkalo, adding that the activist was taken away in an unknown direction by unidentified masked men afterwards.  Lithuanian border guard confirmed to state broadcaster LRT that one person went back, without revealing their identity. There was no official confirmation from Belarus, where Statkevich potentially may face a renewed jail sentence.   In January, AFP spoke to Statkevich’s wife, Marina Adamovich, in Minsk. “I have the best husband in the world, with a capital H,” she said, adding: “My God, I wait for him every minute.” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda wrote on X on Thursday that he was “deeply grateful” for Washington and Trump’s involvement in the release.Lithuania has become a haven for Belarusians who have fled their country since 2020.”More than 1,000 political prisoners still remain in Belarusian prisons and we cannot stop until they see freedom!” Nauseda added.A Trump official, deputy special envoy John Coale, was in Minsk on Thursday, where he handed Lukashenko a personal letter from Trump, including birthday wishes.Coale said the US was lifting sanctions on the country’s state airline, Belavia, in images broadcast on Belarusian state TV.The White House later clarified it would be a “limited relief package” that would allow Belavia to “service and buy components for its existing fleet, which includes Boeing aircraft”.In June, 14 political prisoners were released from prison, including Sergei Tikhanovsky, the husband of exiled opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya.

The United States expects to resolve a bitter tariff row with India within weeks, an envoy of President Donald Trump said Thursday, as he voiced hope for keeping New Delhi in US good graces.India has seen outrage and a spike in anti-US sentiment after Trump imposed tariffs of up to 50 percent on some of its exports over purchases of oil from Russia, under Western sanctions for its invasion of Ukraine.Sergio Gor, nominated by Trump to be ambassador to India, said he expected progress when India’s trade minister visits Washington next week.”I do think it will get resolved over the next few weeks,” Gor told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in his confirmation hearing.Gor has risen quickly in the Trump White House after spearheading the quick vetting for loyalty of 4,000 appointees to run the US government.Despite his lack of formal foreign policy experience, Gor, a 38-year-old former fund-raiser for Trump, appeared prepared for his questions, deftly not replying to a senator’s question on India’s volatile relationship with Pakistan.Describing the tariffs as a “little hiccup,” Gor — also named to a broad position of Trump’s special envoy for South Asia — said of concern over India’s Russia ties, “We hold our friends to different standards.””I will make it a top priority to ensure that they’re pulled in our direction, not away from us,” Gor said of India.Gor noted that Trump, not shy about airing grievances with other leaders, has not personally attacked Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a fellow right-wing populist.”When the president has been critical of India, he has gone out of his way to compliment Prime Minister Modi,” Gor said.Trump has accused New Delhi of fueling Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine by buying oil from Russia, its Cold War ally. Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro has even called it “Modi’s war.”Trump has not taken similar action against Russia itself and appeared peeved that Modi did not personally credit him for a ceasefire between India and Pakistan following their conflict in May.India — maintaining a decades-old red line against outside intervention over divided Kashmir — has also rebuffed Trump’s overtures to mediate between the two nuclear-armed nations.- ‘Wrong direction’ -Politicians from across the US political spectrum have nearly unanimously supported warm ties with India, making Trump’s tariffs a greater jolt.US policymakers have eyed democratic India as a balance to the world’s other billion-plus nation, China, seen as the top long-term adversary to the United States. Modi recently paid a friendly visit to China, despite the two powers’ long animosity.Democratic Senator Tim Kaine told Gor that the United States should be “tough when we need to be, but balance that with a real understanding that we want to be close to India and we don’t want to push them in the wrong direction.”Since returning to the presidency in January, Trump has used tariffs as a wide-ranging tool to address what Washington deems unfair trade practices as well as assorted other priorities.Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC on Thursday that “India basically has to open their market, has to stop buying Russian oil,” when asked about trade talks.He added that “we’ve got a big deal coming with Taiwan, we’ll probably get a deal done with Switzerland.” Steeper tariffs took effect on both economies in early August.

The killing of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk, an ally of President Donald Trump, marks a new milestone in an increasingly violent political scene in the United States.Officials are treating the gunning down of Kirk, 31, at a university in Utah as a politically motivated assassination — something that Trump has called a “dark moment for America.”The US president himself, known like Kirk for his divisive rhetoric, was targeted by a would-be assassin in July 2024 during an election campaign in Pennsylvania. He escaped with just a minor injury to his right ear but the attempted killing shook the United States, which has a long line of murdered presidents, politicians and activists.It’s a violent history that does not discriminate on either side of the political aisle. In June, a masked shooter killed Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman, a Democrat, and her husband at their home. Another elected official and his wife were also targeted and seriously injured. And Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro — touted last year as a presidential hopeful — had his home set alight in April in an alleged assassination attempt. Kirk’s death in front of a crowd of hundreds has particularly shaken conservative politicians. Trump, whose own supporters attacked the US Congress in 2021 after his election loss, condemned political violence in a video address late Wednesday. But rather than calling for unity, he took aim at the “radical left” for rhetoric that Trump said “is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.”And listing recent instances of political violence in the US, he notably did not mention the killing of Melissa Hortman. Trump’s finger pointing was repeated by other conservative figures including Elon Musk, who wrote on X: “The Left is the party of murder.”In the House of Representatives late Wednesday, Republican speaker Mike Johnson observed a silent prayer in tribute to Kirk.But even that led to conflict, as a loyal Trump lawmaker Lauren Boebert’s request that the prayer be said aloud was rejected by Democrats, who cited another shooting at a high school in Colorado on Wednesday. “You all caused this,” shouted Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican from Florida, in apparent reference to Kirk’s murder. That dramatic scene seemed to show how Congress, much like American politics, has tipped into more extreme polarization, even on such a somber night.